TRAVEL

A Cruise? In This Pandemic?

In big news for ABBA cover bands and people who prefer not to fully rub in their sunscreen, Carnival Cruise Line announced it will resume sailing from select ports on August 1. 

The stern story

The cruise industry came under fire early in the pandemic for allowing the coronavirus to spread unchecked. 22% of active ships reported infections, according to the Miami Herald, and the Carnival-operated Diamond Princess had one of the earliest, and at the time biggest, outbreaks outside of China. 

• In early March, Carnival scrambled to soothe customer fears, offering free drinks to passengers who didn't cancel their reservations. But the CDC later dropped the anchor, instituting and then extending a “no sail order'' until July 24. 

Customers filed lawsuits seeking damages from Carnival, the operator responsible for 69% of total cruise ship cases. Now, Congress is stepping in with its own investigation into Carnival's handling of the outbreaks.

High seas, low prices

Carnival's trying to weather a sea of animosity by offering August trips for as little as $28 a day, which for some is cheaper than staying home.

Those bargain deals reflect the long road ahead for the broader travel industry. Take your pick from a buffet of scary numbers:

• Global travel demand won't reach its normal pace until 2023, according to estimates from Tourism Economics.
• Trips of at least one night are expected to fall 30% this year after a record 1.5 billion in 2019.  
• 8 million U.S. workers whose jobs were related to tourism are now jobless, which represents about one-third of total unemployment.

Looking ahead...Carnival has not yet disclosed what precautions it will be taking to prevent further outbreaks. Until it does, $28/day cruises might not be enough to dispel passenger fears of jumping aboard another floating petri dish. 

TECH

Amazon Exec: "I Quit in Dismay"

Working at Amazon is nice, but living with a clear conscience is better, said a prominent VP who resigned from the company's cloud division Friday.

The high-ranking software engineer, Tim Bray, said he was leaving over the company's firings of warehouse workers who spoke up about unsafe working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bray also mentioned the firing of two Amazon corporate employees who pressed the company over its environmental impact.

• Amazon says these employees were fired for violating company policies, not their activism. Bray thinks otherwise, describing the activist firings as "designed to create a climate of fear." 

Zoom out: As Recode points out, Amazon doesn't hand out the VP badge like a participation trophy—only the upper echelon of managers earn the title. So when a BFD like Bray writes that "Amazon treats the humans in the warehouses as fungible units of pick-and-pack potential," it shows that the company's ruthless drive for efficiency isn't shared by all members of the leadership team. 

INVESTING

Plot Twist: Robinhood Keeps the Money

Robinhood, the app you know you shouldn't check constantly but you can't help yourself, announced a $280 million fundraising round that brings the investing platform's valuation to $8.3 billion. 

The backstory: After major glitches in early March cost customers action during a historic market rally, Robinhood beefed up capacity. Something worked, because it's added 3 million funded accounts this year (it reported 10 million total in December). In March, daily trading volume was nearly triple Q4 2019's average. 

• Solidifying Robinhood's status as first base for individual investors, half of new customers are newbies. 

What about an IPO?

Many speculated Robinhood would ring the bell this year, but some analysts are skeptical of its business model. Robinhood earns some revenue by investing customers' cash balances—but that brings in less money now that the Fed gave interest rates a quarantine buzz cut.

CEO Vlad Tenev told Fortune he's moving forward with international expansion. Robinhood recently delayed plans for a U.K. launch, but 150,000 customers are hanging on the waiting list. 

Bottom line: Before the pandemic, Robinhood was the leader among investment apps. This round shows investors haven't stopped believing.

SPONSORED BY ATHLETIC GREENS

Fernando Marathano Is Not Gonna Be Happy About This

Athletic Greens is the ultimate daily all-in-one nutrition, developed from a blend of 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food-sourced ingredients. 

But don’t tell Fernando Marathano.

Fernando Marathano is a (very, extremely real) ultra-running triathlete who’s been sprinting and swimming his way across the globe for 17 years, gathering superfoods to create the world’s greatest nutritional supplement. No one’s had the heart to tell him that Athletic Greens beat him to it.

In addition to its vitamins and minerals like Vitamin C and zinc citrate for immune support, Athletic Greens contains pre and probiotics to fortify your gut health, adaptogens and antioxidants to ease stress, and enzymes and mushroom complex to bolster the digestive process.

It’s everything Fernando Marathano has ever wanted, but he doesn’t know it exists; he’s somewhere in northern Mongolia looking for a supersoil rumored to increase brain function.

Meanwhile, the world’s best nutritional supplement just showed up in your inbox (and then at your doorstep).

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RETAIL

J. Crew Goes Overboard

Yesterday morning, J. Crew filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The apparel chain will keep operations running while working with creditors to tame $1.7 billion in debt and spruce up a brand that's lost its crisp linen edge. 

Why it's a big deal: J. Crew is the pandemic's first major retail casualty. But with most U.S. stores shuttered, legions of furloughed workers, and a consumer base content with alternating between two pairs of sweats, it won't be the last.

Who might be next? 

Men's apparel company J. Hilburn filed for bankruptcy yesterday. And women's retailer J. Jill is talking with financial advisers. Moral of the story: Find a different initial. 

Other members of the Big Khaki crew, including JCPenney, Belk, and Brooks Brothers, are potential candidates. Many were closing stores before the outbreak. And don't forget about...

• Macy's, which also brought on financial advisors. 
• Neiman Marcus, which is shaking under $4.3 billion in debt.

Bottom line, per Retail Brew writer Halie LeSavage: "A wave of retail bankruptcies would've eventually arrived due to preexisting financial troubles—the current crisis is just accelerating them."

MEDIA

Coming in Hot With Pulitzer-Worthy Reading Recs

We missed out on the Pulitzer again this year, but you know what—it’s ok because there are so many deserving winners. Here are a few selections from yesterday’s announcement so you can enjoy their work:

Investigative reporting: Brian Rosenthal of the NYT dug deep into the taxi industry in NYC to reveal its rotten core of predatory lenders. Also comes with an accompanying podcast episode from The Daily. 

Explanatory reporting: the WaPo’s series documenting the effects of climate change. Three highlights from the series...

• Extreme climate change
• Qatar has begun to air-condition the outdoors
• They just can’t quit Big Oil

National reporting: A crew at The Seattle Times exposed software flaws in Boeing’s 737 Max and the lax oversight of the FAA. They split the prize with ProPublica's investigation into the Navy's 7th Fleet. 

Public service: The Anchorage Daily News with support from ProPublica found one in three Alaska villages have no local police. 

General nonfiction: The Undying by Anne Boyer (a memoir about cancer care in the U.S.) and The End of the Myth by Greg Grandin (exploring the symbolism of the American “frontier”).

See the rest of the winners .

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• NBC News Chairman Andy Lack is stepping down as part of a wider reorg.
• WeWork cofounder Adam Neumann sued SoftBank for backing out of a $3 billion tender offer.
• Victoria's Secret's parent company agreed to cancel its deal with Sycamore Partners to take VS private. 
• Ferrari reported better-than-expected earnings and is now worth more than Ford or GM.
• YouTube star Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg signed an exclusive live streaming deal with the platform.
• The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) began its season overnight and signed a TV deal with ESPN. Here's a primer so you can be informed while you watch.

SPONSORED BY THE MOTLEY FOOL

We’ve learned a lot from The Fools. And we’re putting all that stock market know-how to use in a big, big way. Introducing The Ultimate Guide to Investing: Today, Tomorrow, And Beyond. Along with Emily Flippen, investment analyst from The Motley Fool, we’ll be serving up content that will help you navigate the current market landscape. Today’s topic: Riding the Market Rollercoaster. Read on, and then keep your eye out for more helpful articles soon.

BREW'S BETS

Tech Tip Tuesday: The 30 most useful Excel shortcuts in one 12-minute video

New pod episode: Like baseball and apple pie, capitalism is part of the American way of life. But how long can this mashup of free markets x democracy last? On our Business Casual podcast, outspoken venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya makes a case that what we have today is probably not what our country's founders envisioned. Listen to Part 1 now: Apple / Spotify /

On National Teacher Day, here are some stories about educators going above and beyond during the pandemic:

• The teacher who ran 40 miles in a month to send notes to her students
• The teacher who sat in her student’s driveway to cheer her up
• Every teacher who's still saying “Good morning” with a smile

Do you know a teacher who’s getting ultra creative during COVID-19? Share their story .

STRONG MAN TRIVIA

Over the weekend, Icelandic strong man Hafþór Björnsson aka "The Mountain" from Game of Thrones deadlifted 1,104 lbs to set a new world record. In between asking why someone would spend their weekend lifting the equivalent of a small elephant, we found that tiny Iceland has found enormous success in strength competitions.

What other countries have a stranglehold on certain sports? Sounds like a great quiz to us. Using Quartz’s “Dominance Score” as a measure, we'll give you the sport and you have to name the country that's dominated it at recent Olympics. 

1. Table tennis
2. Archery
3. Softball
4. Judo
5. Synchronized swimming
6. 3000-meter steeplechase 

STRONG MAN TRIVIA ANSWER

1. China
2. South Korea
3. U.S.
4. Japan
5. Russia
6. Kenya